


Where the waves shatter

by maliwanhellfire



Series: Not even for a day [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Bodily Harm, I have been trying to write this for almost three years, M/M, Recovery, Relationship Study, See Chapter Warnings, Suicidal Ideation, Taken partly from the Warden Wartable missions, This will make no sense without reading the first one, Warden!Felix
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-09-24 17:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maliwanhellfire/pseuds/maliwanhellfire
Summary: Felix is called away from Skyhold to defend the village of Val Gamord.The very, very belated sequel to "We're not Quite Transient".





	1. Bright Magnolia

**Author's Note:**

> "We're not Quite Transient" was the most popular story that I wrote in 2016, and I always wanted to write a follow up to it. I finally came up with an approach I was happy enough with to follow it through. I hope you enjoy it!

Val Gamord was bitterly cold, even in the summertime. The mountains blocked the morning sun, and seeped a lingering, thick fog whenever the wind was just still enough. Marquise Bouffon was on her way to Val Royeaux wrapped in sack cloth, but her land still thwarted the Wardens at every turn.

Felix stood watch at their camp, which had been pitched in the centre of the Marquise’ gardens, and waited for their latest expedition to return. They were a hundred strong but finding the source of the Darkspawn in the peaks had whittled away at their numbers. They’d lost fifteen wardens since their campaign began, with twenty more too injured to fight.

He pressed his hand against his side pouch, felt the bulk of the letters within. Once he was off duty, he’d read them; remind himself of the people he had waiting for him back home. He could hear the soft clank of armour in the distance, amplified by the synchrony of the Warden’s marching. They always marched in time when returning home, so they wouldn’t be mistaken for darkspawn.  

Felix counted their helms as they passed him. Ten had left that morning. Nine returned.

Celeste broke away from the cohort, pulled her helm from her head and bared her sweaty, blonde hair to the cooling air. She ruffled the short strands as she walked to Felix. Her armour was speckled with dark, sticky blood.

“We lost Símon,” she said, before Felix could ask.

 Felix’s heart dropped in his chest. He clenched his eyes closed for a moment and breathed deep through his nose, exhaled through his mouth. He did it again, the second exhale less shaky than the first. Símon had been only twenty.

“Was it a good death?” Felix asked.

“He brought half the mine down on himself and thirty darkspawn, took out an ogre,” Celeste replied. “We’ve shut down most of the entrances now, except for the main one.”

“Bouffon was an idiot, she turned half the mountain into Montfort cheese.”

“Lieutenant Cloche-Sec wants to mount a final assault on the mine, blow the tunnels and be done with it. I’m of a mind. If we wait too long we’ll risk the entire town.”

Felix thought of his mother, of the light that had been snuffed out when she was taken from the world. He thought of Dorian, who he had loved for most of his life. He would need to write a letter to him before they marched again. He would need to write a letter to Bull.

“The sooner this is done, the better.” Felix spat on the ground. “Bouffon had a far easier end than she deserved.”

Celeste sighed. She tapped her helm against her thigh and the armour clanked, a hard, pleasant sound.

“Come on, let’s have a drink to Símon’s memory,” she said.

“I thought we didn’t have any left.”

“Cullen sent reinforcements from his own men. They brought the beer for morale.”

“Then I could hardly say no,” Felix replied.

 

\---

 

A letter, written on sturdy vellum, left with the personal items of Warden Alexius.

 

_My Dearest Amatus,_

_Tomorrow we will collapse the last of the mines which allow darkspawn into Val Gamord. Our spirits remain high, and we have no doubt of our success. I look forward to returning home to you and Bull. Light a candle for me, will you?_

_If the worst should happen, and this be the last letter I write to you, I want only to say how much I adore you. My life has been blessed to have you in it. I love you._

_I love you, I love you, I love you. I always will._

_Yours,_

_Felix Alexius_

 

\---

 

Found beneath the above. An illustration of handsome Chevalier rendered in ink on the back of the Title page of Hard in Hightown. The Chevalier’s hair is dyed red with berry juice. A note is scrawled beneath.

 

_Dear Bull,_

_My dear friend, I hope you enjoy the drawing. I think of you and Dorian every day, every hour, and I miss you terribly. Tomorrow is the final day of our campaign, and should I survive, I will rip this message off and deliver the rest to you personally. If I do not, know that I love you and I will miss you. I have no regrets, knowing that you and Dorian have each-other. Please take care of him._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Felix_

 

\---

 

Felix’ sword was jarred from his hands by a hurlock’s Warhammer. He pulled the knife from his belt, breached the distance between them in a single step. The hurlock snarled, its pale eyes wild. Felix thrust the knife up, between the hurlock’s teeth, through the bone of its upper palate. It didn’t fall at first. He had to pull the blade back, push it through deeper into the skull. Black blood poured down it’s face as it died. Felix pulled back the knife, grabbed the hurlock’s fallen hammer. His sword was lost in the dark.

“Charges primed!” Hidrin shouted.

Deeper in the mine, an ogre bellowed. Felix could almost feel the ground shaking as it approached.

“Fall back!” Celeste ordered. “Don’t let a single one of them break the line before we take the mine down.”

Felix swung his hammer into the right cheekbone of a shriek. It’s jaw hung by sinew after, but it kept coming. It gurgled as it swept its blades forward. Felix hit it once again. It fell, and stayed fallen.

They were too far from the entrance to the mine. There would not be enough time for all of them.

“She said fall back, idiot,” Hidrin said.

He had an axe in one hand and a detonator in the other.

“You first,” Felix replied.

There were so many of them, a plague. So many, and damned if Felix wouldn’t kill them all.

“It’s been an honour,” Felix said.

“They better write a song about me,” Hidrin said, and Felix couldn’t help but laugh.

 _I’m going to die_ , he thought. _There are worse things_.

Felix saw the glint of daylight behind him as Hidrin blew the charge.

 

\---

 

Felix woke in the Healer’s tent, with five yards of bandages around his torso and a body which hurt too much to move. Celeste was sitting at his side, her head held in her hands.

“Hey,” Felix said. “Are you alright?”

Celeste’s entire body snapped to attention. Her eyes welled with tears and she dropped from her chair to her knees, right beside Felix’s cot.

“You damned fool, am I _alright_?” she said. “Am _I_ alright? You had a mountain drop on your head. I had to pull you from the rubble.”

“That sounds very stressful, I’m sorry about that.”

“I don’t know where we found a ‘Vint like you, but I never want another one.” Celeste’s Orlesian accent grew thicker the more she spoke. “You’ll send my hair white before its time.”

“It will look so fetching in among the blonde, you could hardly tell.” Felix had to breathe shallowly, and it hurt to talk. He took a moment to enjoy the fact that he could breathe at all.

He looked to Celeste, then around the tent. There only three other people there that he could see.

“Four died of their wounds after the battle,” she said. “We lost sixteen to the mine, most during the skirmish. Adele and Bry are gone. So is Hidrin.”

Felix shuddered and couldn’t help a sob from passing his lips. His body lit up in pain from the simple action, his lungs spasmed and it felt as if he had been stabbed. Celeste placed her hand over his head and the centre of his chest. She held him down. She fed cool magic into his broken body. It was like a hit of opium.

It was like being home again.

 

\---

 

A letter written on the back of an old requisition list, attached to the foot of a crow.

 

_Dearest Dorian and Bull,_

_All is well, but I have fractured my leg and many of my ribs, and also I am good at thaumaturgic mathematics, so the Commander is sending me home. I will be with you both soon._

_All my love,_

_Felix_

 

\---

 

“Why can’t you come with me?” Felix asked.

He was still laid up, packed into the back of a cart with the rest of the provisions. The healers had told him he wasn’t allowed to do anything strenuous for a few weeks. He’d asked Celeste if that included sex and she’d hit him.

“We still need to patrol the area, make sure there’s no stragglers lingering around,” Celeste said. “I’ll write.”

“Yes, but I am bored now and I will be so much more bored in the days to come.”

“You have half the legion with you to keep you company.”

“I don’t like half the legion half as much as I like you.”

Scout Harding appeared at Celeste’s shoulder, her pretty, red hair shone in the sunlight. The scar on her cheek shifted as she smiled.

“Do you want us to leave you here?” Harding asked. “I’m sure your boyfriends won’t mind.”

“Dorian is well known for his patience, true,” Felix said.

“I leave you in good hands. I will see you soon enough, I am sure,” Celeste said.

She climbed into the back of the cart for a moment and bent down to drop a kiss on his cheek. Felix hugged her gingerly, careful of his healing ribs. He took a moment to commit her face to memory, from the fine lines by her eyes to the small notch in her delicately pointed ear.

“Be well, my friend,” Felix said.

“Be well,” she replied.

Then she turned away and dropped back off the cart. Harding left to take her place in the procession but Celeste stayed where she was as the cart finally began to move away. She waved to him as she disappeared from sight.

 

\---

 

Felix slept fitfully in the following days. The gentle swaying of the cart aggravated his ribs and left him feeling sick. He broke out in a cold sweat whenever he was awake. Began to fear that he would fall to an illness so close to home. The healer’s kept a close eye on him, gave him Elfroot for healing and Ghoul’s Beard for his fever. Harding slept next to him at night.

He felt as bad as he had when he’d first contracted the Blight.

“ _I just want to see him again_ ,” Felix said, desperately, when they stopped on the third day. “ _Maker please let me see him again before I die_.”

“Felix, I can’t understand you,” Harding said.

She held his hand and her face looked very pale in the dusk light.

“ _I never wrote to my father. Do you think he’ll tell my father?_ ”

“Felix, you’re speaking Tevene, please… Jonan, find me someone else who can speak Tevene!”

“ _I’m so close. I don’t want to die like this._ ”

The cart jostled and Felix cried out. A Warden dropped to their knees next to Harding, their staff still strapped to their back. They put a hand to Felix’s brow, just as Celeste had days before. Felix could barely see them through the blur of his eyes, could only recognise them from the silver of their armour.

“Somno puer,” they said. The familiar words were said with an Orlesian bur.

“Ut videam eorum!” Felix begged.

“Faciet te cito.”

Felix’s body felt cool and painless, for the first time in days. His eyes fluttered shut and he slept.

When he woke he saw the ramparts of Skyhold, cresting over the hill.

 

\---

 

He drifted in and out on the final leg of their journey, his excitement unable to overcome his exhaustion. He jolted awake as the cart rolled onto the drawbridge but was unable to muster his usual reflexive fear of only having some wood between him and a mile-long fall. All he wanted was to see Dorian and Bull, and hopefully convince Bull to carry him up to his bed and let him sleep for a year.

There was a low roaring sound which focused into cheering once the cart properly entered the Keep. The mistrust that had once characterised Skyhold’s relationship with the Wardens was gone. Their hard work since the horrors of Adamant had earned back the loyalty of the people, and the trust of the Inquisition. He only wished he could be out there amongst it, looking for Bull’s horns in the scrum.

The cart rocked, almost violently as someone swung themselves up into it. Felix cried out from the pain, gritted his teeth.

“Sorry!” It was Bull’s voice. “Shit, I’m sorry. You alright?”

Felix would’ve laughed if it hurt less.

“I will be,” he said. “Please Bull, be gentle with me.”

Bull took his hand with care and haste, pressed a kiss into its palm. His hands shook. His eye was red, as if he had been crying.

“Bull, I promise you, I will be fine. It was rough for a while but there’s no need to fret now.”

Bull’s eye squeezed shut and Felix felt a burst of regret for having worried him so.

 “Bull?”

“They need to take you to the Infirmary,” Bull said.

“I had assumed,” Felix said. “I was hoping to convince you to take me to your room instead. Have you and Dorian play nursemaid.”

“My room might be better,” Bull said. “I can do that. I’ll ask.”

“I’ve never seen you this upset. What’s wrong?”

“Just need to get you settled, I’ll fill you in on everything you’ve missed.”

Normally when Felix came back from missions, Dorian would be waiting by the gates with Bull in tow. He was blatantly willing to throw off work to do it, and yet still he had not appeared.

“Why isn’t Dorian here?” Felix asked. “I’m feeling rather neglected with only one man to welcome me home.”

Bull was an excellent liar, by profession and inclination where necessary. Felix hadn’t known him long enough to know his tells, but something in him had been worn down already, down to the bone. Bull flinched, just a little.

“Bull, where is Dorian?” Felix asked, blood turned cold.

“He’s alive,” Bull said. “I don’t want you panicking like this. He’s alive and he’s stable.”

“Then let me see him,” Felix said, pleaded.

“Okay,” Bull said. “Okay.”

 

\---

 

Dorian looked as if he were asleep. The left side of his face was mottled with purple and green bruises. The healers had shaved off his moustache, which left him looking gentler, more vulnerable. Dorian had always hated the way his face looked bare. He breathed clearly, evenly, but he did not wake.

“What’s wrong?” Felix’ voice was weak to his own ears.

“He took a bad hit. Healer’s fixed him up,” Bull said. “He just… hasn’t woken up yet.”

“How many days?”

“It’s not been too long-“

“How many days?”

Felix’ voice cracked as he said it. Bull sat down next to him, on the cot he’d needed to lay Felix out on as soon as they’d arrived.

“Three days,” Bull said. “I’m sorry.”

Felix sobbed and it hurt so badly, in his body, in his ribs, in his heart.

“It’s not meant to be like this,” Felix said. 

“I know, Kadan.”

“What do we do?”

Bull wrapped his arms carefully around Felix, cupped Felix’ head in one big, warm hand. He kissed Felix’ forehead, pressed his cheek into Felix’ hair. Bull’s breath hitched, and Felix knew that he was crying too. They feared together. They held each-other's sorrow.

“Bull,” Felix said. “What am I going to do?”

Bull had no answer.

 


	2. Collapses its Towers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for chapter warnings. There's potentially triggering content in this one.

_Felix held a lick of veilfire in his hand, one of few spells he could summon with his limited abilities. He walked quietly through the halls of his home, casting long shadows over the tapestries and paintings. He turned towards the west wing, away from his family’s rooms, towards his father’s study. He let the flame die out when he saw a dim light in the furthest doorway. He looked around the corner. There, sitting at his father’s desk, amid an array of journals, was his father’s apprentice. Dorian Pavus, previously of Qarinus, more recently of Asariel, and very distantly of Felix’s acquaintance._

_Dorian had his quill against his cheek. He’d move it every moment or two, so the soft barbs brushed against his lips. His skin was golden in the candlelight, framed by the dark room. Chiaroscuro. Like a painting._

_Felix tapped his knuckles against the door frame and Dorian turned. His thoughtful mien disappeared beneath a smile that dimpled his cheeks._

_“What are you doing up so late?” Dorian asked. “Are you sneaking out or are you sneaking back in?”_

_Felix smiled and shook his head._

_“You know I’m too dull for that,” Felix said._

_“Hardly,” Dorian said._

_Dorian turned in his chair. He crossed his legs, left over right, leaned his arm against the table, the side of his hand against his cheek. He sprawled artfully, effortlessly._

_“I brought you a snack from the kitchens,” Felix said._

_“Please, don’t get into trouble on my behalf,” Dorian said._

_Dorian dragged another chair out from the table with his foot. Swept the papers aside to make a space. His smile was even brighter than it had been._

_“I like trouble,” Felix replied._

_“I’m sure you do,” Dorian said._

_They were the only people in the world, in that moment, in the candlelit dark._

 

\---

 

The healers told him he had the cold lung, and that his fractured bones could not be healed with magic while he was so weak. Felix thanked them for their time. Promised that he would rest and spend a few hours a day in the sun. The surgeon asked how Felix was keeping, and when he tried to answer his throat closed around the words and all he could do was squeeze his eyes tight and shake his head. His lips were held in the most bitter grimace he had ever made.

How could she ask him that, when the world was ending all around him?

 

\---

 

_There were so many of them._

_He winged a shriek with his halberd, with enough force that the creature spun as it fell. Its blood stained the ground black. He heard their guardsman cry and fall, bare yards away, with two hurlocks between them. The man screamed as a thin darkspawn thrust a knife into his gut. Once and again, and again, and again, that awful wet sound so loud amid the battle, so unspeakably horrible._

_“Felix!” his mother shouted. “Eyes up!”_

_He felt the cool touch of her barrier fall over him. He turned to her for a moment and saw her hand sweep out, a wall of fire rising up from the ground. A Hurlock threw itself toward her. Felix caught it in the gut. Cast it aside with a twist of his arm._

_A body collided with his, hard and vicious. He hit the ground, scraping his forearms raw on the dirt. He turned, halberd too long to lift and held his arms up to fend off a blow. A Hurlock. It bellowed into his face. Aimed a punch that Felix dodged with a desperate twist of his neck. Felix pulled the knife from his belt, stabbed it into the hurlock’s eye. It twitched, its body a dead weight over Felix. Blood dripped from its eye, onto Felix’s face, down his arm. Felix shouted in blind horror, pushed the body off him._

_There was silence but for his own laboured breath._

_Felix turned and there was no one else standing around him. No one._

_There, on the ground, a limp figure in silk robes. Four arrows in her chest._

 

\---

 

Felix snapped awake, his body tensed, hands clawed against the weight over him. He pushed it down and it went. The light was bright around him. The courtyard before him. Just a blanket. Just Skyhold. He’d fallen asleep, seated in front of the infirmary.

He brushed his hand over his face as his heart raced, the roar of his blood fading slowly. He hadn’t had that dream in so long. Felix felt a bright burst of embarrassment over startling like a horse. It almost covered the aching pain he was in.

“Are you alright?” A woman’s voice. Nevarran accent.

Felix took his hand away from his eyes and looked up. The Seeker stood before him. He knew her as a woman with steel in her spine, but in that moment she looked unsure. There was a quirk to her lips that spoke of discomfort.

“My apologies,” Felix said. “I had a bad dream. I shouldn’t sleep during the day.”

“Understandable, during your recovery.”

Of course she was aware of it.

“I wouldn’t want to make a fuss. Please, don’t let me divert you, Lady Seeker.”

The Seeker’s lips pursed, and her eyes darted towards the infirmary door. Dorian had mentioned her in the past. She had always seemed a softer woman in Dorian’s recollections than she ever had in person. Her interactions with the Senior Wardens had always been cold, at best.

“I was… very sorry to hear about Lord Dorian,” she said. “He is a valued member of the Inquisition and a good man.”

‘’I wonder if this will finally prove it,” Felix said.

He was surprised by his own bitterness, how deeply it had seeped into his voice. All the pain in his heart and his body had eaten away at the softer core of him, at all the social niceties he had once needed to survive. He didn’t miss them.

“Lord Alexius-“

“Warden Alexius, if you please.”

“Warden Alexius. I don’t know what you mean.”

Maybe she didn’t. The forthright were so easily derailed by the unexpected. The Wardens had always treated her with great deference, out of esteem and pragmatism. Not as many Wardens as there had been, perhaps less need for deference, then.

“People have so much respect for the dead and so little love for the living. Don’t you find that funny?” Felix asked. “Stupid question. You are Nevarran, after all.”

She didn’t say anything. She looked wounded.

“There’s little middle ground between Pariah and Martyr, I find,” Felix said.

“I apologise if I have cause offence,” the Seeker said.

“I apologise for being offended.” Felix shifted in his seat and his ribs ached worse for it. “He speaks fondly of you.”

He watched her face carefully, how her eyes widened just slightly, how her lips dipped into a frown. She was far too easy to read, for a noble-born woman. He could’ve left it there and it would have been enough.

But how dare she. How dare she condescend to his face when she would have spat at his back.

“Lady Seeker, can you say the same?” Felix asked.

Her face fell.

“I-“

“My apologies, I find myself rather tired. Perhaps another time.”

Felix pushed himself to his feet, slowly, carefully, wincing as he went. He took his crutch from where it leant against the wall but left the blanket behind. He couldn’t carry it himself.

“Good day, Seeker,” Felix said.

He limped into the infirmary and did not look back. There was a long pause before he the clank of her armour, each step quieter as she walked away.

 

\---

 

_“Amatus,” Dorian said. “I am so sorry.”_

_Dorian took Felix’s hands in his, kissed Felix’s fingers. He’d scarcely left Felix’s side since he’d come home. He had gone pale from grief, though not so pale as Felix. Felix could scarcely look in a mirror and face his own deathly pallor. His father was little more than a spirit, haunting their home when he wasn’t called away by the funeral arrangements._

_They’d known that Felix was sick, but the healer had finally confirmed it._

_“We’ll do whatever we can to help you. We’ll try to find a cure,” Dorian said._

_Felix took a hand from Dorian’s gentle grasp and cupped Dorian’s cheek with his palm. Dorian leaned into the touch, his eyes closed as if in pain._

_“Just be with me,” Felix said. “I couldn’t want for anything else.”_

 

\---

 

The door to the infirmary opened and the room became just a little lighter. Felix looked towards it and saw that it was Bull, his shoulders dipped with exhaustion. Bull gave Felix a weak but sincere smile and came to join him by Dorian’s cot. Bull put his arm around Felix’s shoulder. For the first time that day, Felix felt present in his own body.

“How was training?” Felix asked.

“Krem’s shield work is improving,” Bull said. “The boys are heading out next week, don’t want them to go before I’ve polished them up a bit.”

“They must be shining by now, Bull.”

“Always room for improvement. How are you doing?”

“Better with you here.”

Bull leaned over and kissed Felix’s hair. Felix leant into the reassuring bulk of his body, listened to the beat of his heart through his chest.

“I’m sorry I left you,” Bull said.

Felix felt a pang of guilt.

“I promise I didn’t mean it like that. You have commitments that I- that neither of us would ever want to keep you from. I don’t want you to sit here while I sleep.” Felix sat up with a flinch and a low hiss between his teeth. “It’s just good to see you.”

Bull put his hands on Felix’s shoulders and eased him back up in his seat. Felix’ missed being able to move easily, though he doubted it would’ve done much to improve his mood.

“Sera wants to visit but she gets nervous about these sorts of things. Are you up for a visit?”

“I’m sure Dorian would appreciate it, just tell her not to jump on me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Felix looked back towards Dorian. He slept peacefully. His face was still clean-shaven, but his bruising had mostly healed. He looked unbearably young.

“Have you eaten yet?” Bull asked.

“I’m not terribly hungry.”

“Come with me to the Rest, just for a little while. Cabot has soup.”

Felix wanted to say no, but he could see the tension in the line of Bull’s mouth, the dark circle under his eye. He had no desire to hurt Bull worse than he was already hurting.

“Alright,” Felix said.

 

\---

 

 _“It’s not working!” Dorian said. “We’re wasting the time we have left to_ be _with him.”_

_“You might be willing to let my son die, but I’m not,” Gereon replied._

_It was chance that Felix heard them. He didn’t spend much time near his father’s study anymore. Couldn’t bear to watch the remains of his family beat their heads against a wall. He’d just had a whim that day, to go see them, try to drag them away from their experiments and out into the sunlight._

_He’d known the cracks were showing, just not how much._

_“How could you say that? You know how much I care for him.”_

_“Do you? Or do you just enjoy the attention.”_

_“How dare y-“_

_“Better you leave now, if it’s too difficult for you.”_

_Felix had never heard them speak to each other in such a way. His father had always revelled in the work he and Dorian had achieved, had viewed Dorian with respect and fondness. Felix knew that Dorian returned those sentiments, was endlessly grateful to his mother and father. Felix walked as quickly as he could, down the hall towards them, his blood like ice._

_“Why can’t you listen? You’re a stubborn old man!”_

_“Better a stubborn old man than a whore.”_

_Felix turned the corner into the study, his weak lungs labouring from so small an effort. He kept a grip on the casing to hold himself steady. Dorian and his father’s heads snapped towards him, eyes wide and shoulders tense. His father was red in the face, and Dorian’s eyes welled with tears._

_“Stop it,” Felix said._

_“Felix,” Gereon replied._

_“Maybe you could both consult me over decisions relating to my own health, how does that sound?”_

_Dorian flinched and looked down and away. His fists were clenched. His face fell into a miserable frown. His father slumped. His father put his hands out placatingly._

_“We just want-“_

_“You want to feel better about this shitful situation. Well I do too, and I think my needs matter just a little more at this moment in time. I don’t want the people I love to tear each other apart.”_

_His father stood silent. Dorian had his hand over his trembling mouth._

_“There is no cure for this, not that you’ll find in enough time to save me. But that’s not the only option,” Felix said._

_“Felix, please,” his father said._

_“I’m going to join the Wardens,” Felix said. “I’ve wasted enough time. I want to do something good with what I have left.”_

_His father sat down, slowly, as if he might fall. He put his face in his hands. Felix didn’t even look towards Dorian. He could hear the sound of his breaths, hitching in the newly quiet room._

\---

 

Harding brought him a letter from Celeste, on the fifth day after his return. She sat with him while he read it, her face turned up towards the sun, her eyes closed.

“How did she get this to me so quickly?” Felix asked.

“She tucked it in with a bunch of reports to Leliana,” Harding replied.

Felix huffed out a laugh, his first that week.

“Ah, that sounds like her,” he said.

She hadn’t heard of his misfortune, yet. She’d written to him about the work she was doing and her annoyance at the newer recruits. Celeste hadn’t said she missed him, but it was there in every word.

“Do you want to send anything back?” Harding asked, gently.

“I don’t know what to say,” Felix said. “This isn’t…”

_This isn’t how it was supposed to go._

“I could let her know, if you like,” Harding said.

“Do you mind if I think about it?”

“Of course not.”

“You’d think I’d be used to giving bad news by now.”

Harding looked at him with such sorrow that Felix couldn’t help but regret the words. She was so sincere in her manner. Felix turned to frustration more easily as the days went on, but he never resented her. She was who she professed to be, without hesitation. She reminded him a little of-

Well.

“My apologies,” Felix said.

He rested his face in his hand for a moment, his fingers over his eyes. He breathed into the ache in his chest. It ebbed but it did not leave him.

Was it even right to tell Celeste more bad news, when the both of them were mourning so many among the Wardens? Felix had tamped those thoughts down, lest they overwhelm him. The only person in Skyhold who had known him more than six months was lying unconscious in the infirmary, and Felix could barely walk the few feet it would take to be with him again. How many friends did he have left?

He felt the touch of a hand on his wrist. He let his hands drop from his eyes.

“Nobody can understand what you’re going through,” Harding said. “But you have people with you. Anything you need, just ask and it’s yours.”

Felix wanted to be grateful, was grateful, but there was a voice at the edges of his mind whispering. Something angry and vicious and growing. They couldn’t give him the one thing he could want, so what was the point of it? What was the point of any of it.

 

\---

 

_They didn’t make love on the last night. There was a strange and desperate mood between them. They couldn’t bear to be apart, kept their hands clasped, fingers threaded together. Every few minutes they would kiss as if they couldn’t help it, but it never turned to ardour. It was as if they both knew that if they lay together one last time, that would be the end. That would be their goodbye and they would never see one another again._

_Whether they did or not, it would be true, but Felix still couldn’t stand it. If they didn’t sleep then surely morning couldn’t come._

_“Let me come with you,” Dorian said, his voice thick with tears._

_“There’s a life for you, after this,” Felix said. “The only thing that could hurt worse than leaving you would be the knowledge that I took your future away.”_

_“I don’t want to be without you,” Dorian replied._

_He said it so softly, with so much pain that Felix could hardly stand it. Dorian sat before him, beautiful and wounded, and Felix knew that he was never going to recover from having loved such a man._

_“You will be happy again one day,” Felix said._

_Dorian choked on a sob, and he nodded his head as if he didn’t believe a single word._

\---

 

Felix woke while it was still dark, Bull asleep beside him. He’d had difficulty sleeping since his illness but normally the steady cadence of Bull’s breaths would lull him back. Not that night. Felix was restless in a way he couldn’t name. His body felt empty and sore. He longed for home, but home had died, and home was asleep, never to wake, and home was next to him and where he lay and even still, he wanted it, dearly, hopelessly, he wanted to go _home_.

He lay there quietly and felt like he was dying.

After minutes, he shifted to his side, eased himself from the bed. Bull was a light sleeper, but he’d grown accustomed to having bedmates, and he didn’t wake for them. Felix took his crutch and hobbled to the door. He turned the doorknob slowly, carefully, so it didn’t make a sound. Bull did not wake. Felix slipped outside and closed the door behind him.

The sky was inky dark, and full of stars. There was a torch lit behind him, but the light was upsetting him, so Felix swept out a hand and called just enough water that the flame snuffed out. It left him dizzy, and he had to hold himself up on the stone that skirted the battlements as the motes left his eyes.

He looked over the edge and it seemed a long way down, and not very far at all. His crutch fell from his grasp and rattled on the paving. Felix leaned over, so he could see the walls spread down into nothing. He held one arm out so he could feel the wind against his skin. His heart beat faster. He wobbled on his unsteady feet.

Behind him, the door opened. He didn’t look. He knew it would be Bull.

“Felix,” Bull said with a voice like a straight edge. “I didn’t hear you get out of bed.”

Felix didn’t answer. The void inside him wavered. He was waiting in another endless night, on the edge of a decision he could not take back.

He looked to the side. Bull was closer than he’d expected him to be. Light on his feet, for such a large man.

“Let’s go back. Let’s talk in the morning,” Bull said.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

He heard the words as if he hadn’t spoken them, felt them deep inside his body, like a bitter scream. He turned back to the sky, black and endless. He thought, then, that he should have let it be after he caught the Blight. He should have died years ago.

Bull put his hand on Felix’ arm and the moment was gone. The opportunity lost. His legs gave out beneath him. Bull caught him.

“Fuck,” Bull said. “Oh, fuck, please, you can’t do that to me.”

Felix wanted to curl up on the ground, to hide from the drop just behind him. Every limb in his body shook and he wanted to weep for having thought to fall. He wanted to weep for having failed.

Bull trembled around him, and his body was an anchor. The only real thing in his world. How awful Felix was, how poisonous and cruel, to have done what he did, to such a good man. There were no words that could be said, and Felix could not speak.

“Please, Kadan, come back inside. Come with me,” Bull said.

Felix nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has Felix' mental state begin to degrade, and suicidal ideation creeps in. Felix acts very bitterly towards Cassandra. There's an end scene where Felix contemplates suicide without knowing that's what he's doing, but Bull steps in. 
> 
> I want to be clear that I'm not writing about suicide for cheap drama. This chapter borrows a lot from my own experiences with grief. 
> 
> Comments help me write faster.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if I missed any tags. Would really appreciate feedback on this one!


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